But what if they weren’t wrong? A psychopath obsessed with finding and killing her father? He’d called himself her boyfriend. He’d blown up that poor old bag lady in front of the Metropolitan Museum. He’d dug up Linda Cartwright and bashed in her face. No empathy, no remorse, people were detritus, nothing more. God, it was unthinkable.
She looked over at Adam. He was looking toward Savich, but she didn’t think he really saw him. Adam was really looking inward, ah, but his eyes—they were cold and hard and she wouldn’t want to have to tangle with him. She heard her father in the other room, speaking to Gaylan Woodhouse on the phone.
Sherlock and Savich left a few minutes later, leaving Adam and Becca in the living room, looking at each other. He said, his hands jiggling change in his pockets, “I’ve got stuff to do at my house. I want you to stay here with Thomas, under wraps. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I want to do some stuff, too,” she said, rising. “I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’ll stay here. It’s safe here.”
And he was gone.
Her father appeared in the doorway. She said, “I’ll see you later, sir. I’m going with Adam.” She picked up her purse and ran after him. He was nearly to the road when she caught up with him. “Where are you going?”
“Becca, go back. It’s safer here. Go back.”
“No. You don’t believe any more than I do that some colleague or friend of Krimakov’s from the good old days is wreaking all this havoc. I think we’re missing something here, something that’s been there all the time, staring us in the face.”
“What do you mean?” he said slowly. She saw the agents in the car down the street slowly get out and stand, both of them completely alert.
“I mean nothing makes sense unless it’s Krimakov. But just say that it isn’t. That means we’re missing something. Let’s go do your stuff together, Adam, and really plug in our brains.”
He eyed her a moment, looked around, then waved at the agents. “We’ve got to walk. It’s three miles. You up for it?”
“I’d love to race you. Whatcha say?”
“You’re on.”
“You’re dead meat, boy.”
Since they were both wearing sneakers, they could run until they dropped. He grinned at her, felt energy pulse through him. He wanted to run, to race the wind, and he imagined that she wanted to as well. “All right, we’re going to my house. I have all my files there, all my notes, everything. I want to scour them. If it is someone who knew Krimakov, then there’s got to be a hint of him in there somewhere. Yes, there must be something.”
“Let’s go.”
She nearly had his endurance, but not quite. He slowed in the third mile.
“You’re good, Becca,” he said, and waved his hand. “This is my house.”
She loved it. The house wasn’t as large as her father’s, but it sat right in the middle of a huge hunk of wooded land, two stories, a white colonial with four thick Doric columns lined up like soldiers along the front. It looked solid, like it would last forever. She cleared her throat. “This is very nice, Adam.”
“Thanks. It’s about a hundred and fifty years old. It’s got three bedrooms upstairs, two bathrooms—I added one. Downstairs is all the regular stuff, including a library, which I use for a study, and a modern kitchen.” He cleared his throat. “I had the kitchen redone a couple years ago. My mom told me no woman would marry me unless the stove would light without having to hold a match to a burner.”
She smiled. She nearly had her breathing back to normal.
“I had one of the two upstairs bathrooms redone, too,” he said, looking straight ahead. They climbed the three deep steps to walk across the narrow veranda to the large white front door. He stuck a key in the lock and turned it. “My mom said that no woman wanted to bathe in a claw-footed tub that was so old rust was peeling off the toes.”
“That does sound pretty gross. Oh my, Adam, it’s lovely.”
They stood together in a large entryway, with a ceiling that soared two stories, a chandelier hanging down over their heads and a lovely buffed oak floor. “I know, you redid the floors. Your mom told you no woman would marry you if she had to be carried into a house across a mess of old ratty linoleum.”
“How did you know?”
He’d preserved all the original charm of the house—the deeply carved, rich moldings, the high ceilings, the lovely cherry wood carved fireplaces, the incredible set-in windows.